“Dere! Dere!” he cried, “don’t you hear her now? ‘Ah, ah, ah, oo, oo, oo, oo!’ Vell, dat’s what we get from morning till night–by golly, it makes me sick!”
“Aw, that’s all right,” said Denver after listening critically, “she’s just getting ready to sing.”
“Getting ready!” sneered the Professor, “don’t you fool yourself dere–she’ll keep dat going for hours. And in the morning she puts on just one thin white dress and dances barefoot in the garden. I come by dere one time and looked over the vall–and, psst, listen, she don’t vare no corsets! She ought to be ashamed.”
“Well, what about you, you danged old stiff?” inquired Denver with ill-concealed scorn. “If Old Bunk had seen you he’d have killed you.”
“Ah–him?” scoffed the Professor, “no, he von’t hurt nobody. Lemme tell you something–now dis is a fact. When he married his vife–and she’s an awful fine lady–all she asked vas dat he’d stop his 60tammed fighting. You see? I know everyt’ing–every little t’ing–I been around dis place too long. She came right out here from the East and offered to marry him, but he had to give up his fighting. He was a bad man–you see? He was quick with a gun, and she was afraid he’d go out and get killed. So I laugh at him now and he goes avay and leaves me–but he von’t let me talk with his vife. She’s an awful nice woman but─”
“Danged right she is!” put in Denver with sudden warmth and after a rapid questioning glance the Professor closed his mouth.
“Vell, I guess I’ll be going,” he said at last and Denver did not urge him to stay.
61CHAPTER VIII
THE SILVER TREASURE
As evening came on and the red eye of the sun winked and closed behind a purple range of mountains Denver Russell came out of his cliff-dwelling cave and looked at the old town below. Mysterious shadows were gathering among the ruins, the white walls stood out ghostly and still, and as a breeze stirred the clacking leaves of the sycamores a voice mounted up like a bird’s. It rose slowly and descended, it ran rippling arpeggios and lingered in flute-like trills; but it was colorless, impersonal, void of feeling.